I pack for Pittsburgh when I get home. We have a stop in Buffalo first, but I'm more caught up in the city after that. The girls are spending time with their boyfriends before the road trip, one of the first longer ones of the season so I didn't try to reach out to any of them.
I'm a little unsure at first what to pack for the road trip. I add up the days and came to the conclusion that I simply could not bring a new outfit for every single day. Instead, I spend over an hour picking pieces from my closet that I can mix and match with other items. It's a lot more stressful than I initially thought it would. Thankfully, we are staying on the same coast for all the games and I don't have to plan for both warm and cold weather. Though I would prefer to dress for the warm.
By the time I finish I'm exhausted and starving. I hadn't gone grocery shopping for a while because I knew the road trip was coming up so I thumb through my favorite take out restaurants and settle on Thai. Unfortunately, I miss the delivery service by three minutes and I have to go pick it up myself.
I eye my bag waiting at the door to be brought downstairs in the morning and wonder if I should just bring it down now. Usually Morgan and I carpool either to the arena or the airport to leave for road trips but I never assume we are going together. Deciding it's too heavy and I'm too hungry, I leave it and hope that Morgan offers to carry it downstairs tomorrow.
I'm almost to my vehicle when I notice that Morgan's car is still gone which strikes me as strange but I ignore it and head out to get my food.
When I return, his car is in its regular place as it should be. But then I also notice a girl standing next to an unfamiliar car parked on Morgan's other side and only then do I realize Morgan is still in his car. I freeze in my seat and heat prickles up my neck, mortified that I just had to pull into the garage at this exact moment. Hurt floods my body and I feel the pain of a dull ache that has no point of origin.
I consider staying in my car until they go inside, but the girl is staring hard at me and I know I have no choice. By the time I get myself and my food out, Morgan is also closing his car door and my stomach drops when I see his arm go around the girl.
There's only one elevator.
The thought strikes me and there is way that I want the horrifying position of being in an elevator with the two of them and then awkwardly being across the hall from them.
Maybe I'm just overreacting. Maybe she's his friend, like I'm his friend. He hasn't mentioned a girl in the weeks that I've known his, a part from the pixie girl, this is the first girl I've ever even seen Morgan with. But still, a bucket of ice water pours down on me and my stomach aches. Just the smell of my Thai food makes me nearly convulse.
I should not be this upset. I shouldn't even be upset at all, I have a boyfriend!
I avoid Morgan's stare, not that he's trying to catch my eye to begin with and keep my head low as I scramble towards the elevator. Morgan, apparently out of time stalling, footsteps echo with the girls behind me and I think for an escape route. The stairs are not an option, I am way too lazy for even one flight to stall for time.
I'm twenty feet from the elevator and my heart is pounding and aching at the same time.
Fifteen feet.
Ten.
"Oh, shoot," I mutter, loud enough for the two behind me to hear and I pretend to look through my purse for something. My footsteps falter and I'm surprised when another set do as well. The girl breezes past me, I can still feel her gaze boring holes in my body but Morgan hesitates for a just a second. I look at him in surprise and he looks at me with equal surprise.
"Everything okay?" He asks, a hand reaching out to touch my shoulder but I jerk away. The instinct of someone who just hurt me trying to somehow comfort me. I don't even want to look at him, but I see the flash of hurt that crosses his face as his arm falls limply to his side again.
"I'm fine," I snap, turning on my heel and marching back to my car, deciding that what I lost was my dignity.
I don't see if Morgan watches me and I don't care. Because when the girl he was with says-
"Rude much?"
I already know he's in the elevator. I try to be angry when the elevator pings shut. Anger is easier to cope with than hurt. But I can't. I don't have a reason to be angry and I don't have a reason to be hurt. But the dull ache flooding my body says otherwise. Hot tears flood my eyes and I try in vain to blink them away.
Morgan can do whatever and whoever he wants to.
I say that over and over again in my head as I stop halfway back to my car. There's no need to go back to it, I didn't forget anything in the first place.
Instead, I wait outside the elevator doors for nearly ten minutes. I'm sure the security guy watching the cameras is probably wondering if I'm some crazy lady.
Peeking down my long hallway first, I creep out of the elevator and hurry to my door. I leave the Thai food on the counter, too sick to my stomach to eat. Instead I flop down on the couch, where less than twenty-four hours ago, I had slept side by side with Mo.
Tears still prickle at my eyes and I wipe them away angrily.
I shouldn't be crying. I'm being stupid.
I compose myself long enough to call Nick, hoping to take my mind off Morgan and it works to begin with. Nick tells me all the plans he has for me few days in Pittsburgh, accepting that I'm going to have to work while I'm there, he surprises me by working around my schedule.
But thoughts of Morgan slowly crawl back into my mind. His arm around the girl. Her 'mean girl' stare as she took me in when I got out of my car. The way that my body aches.
I hang up with Nick much sooner than I had anticipated, barely hearing his goodbye and love you. I throw my phone into the chair across the room and put my face into my hands. Muffling my heavy breathing as I fight to control my emotions when I hear a door open.
I raise my head and hold my breath as I hear muffled voices from the hallway. My instincts want me to get up and go to the door but my heart aches so much that I don't know if it could take much more. But I can't fight it, I scamper down the hallway and almost throw myself against the door in my haste.
Righting myself, I look out in time to see Morgan's open door and then Morgan appearing in said doorway and handing a purse out to the girl I hadn't noticed at first. Now, she shifts into view, a sour look on her face as she snatches the purse from Morgan's hand.
"Thanks for such a fabulous evening," she snarls shoving the purse onto her shoulder and giving Morgan a filthy glare. "Next time you ask a girl back to your place, make it worth her while."
I stare in shock as she stomps down the hallway to the elevator. I swivel back to look at Morgan and startle when he's looking at me. No. Looking at my door.
His expression is nearly blank, a trickle of confusion in his eyes as they flick up to the peephole and I hold my breath, unable to look away. He stares at the door, I stare at him for what feels like an eternity. Until eventually, Morgan sighs and steps back into his apartment and closes the door softly behind him.
I take a step back as well, leaning against the hallway wall and sliding down until my butt hits the floor. Confusion taking place of the hurt I had felt only moments before.
Why bring a girl home to just make her leave?
Because he saw you.
I scoff at the very idea of it being because of me. He knows about Nick and never in the slightest, has he ever looked at me in any other way than a friend.
I sit there for a long time, battling with myself. So long that I nearly let out a yelp when a piece of paper come flying underneath my door. It lands inches from my bare feet and I pick it up to see the now familiar writing sprawled across it.
Knock at ten.
I want to laugh out loud then. Every morning, no matter if there's a game or just practice, Morgan texts me nearly the same exact message. "Knock at..." and then he puts what time he wants to leave by.
I turn the note over and over in my hands. He could have texted me this. Instead, like that second night he wanted me to come over for dinner, he slipped the note underneath my door, not allowing me the chance to decline.